


the elephant in the whitehouse

by shesmyplusone



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: s07e13 The Cold, F/M, Humor, Missing Scene, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:20:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27752194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shesmyplusone/pseuds/shesmyplusone
Summary: "What do you think ‘it was bound to happen sometime’ means?”“Hello to you, too,” Toby grumbled.-Josh frets about Donna’s reaction to his apology. Toby has nothing better to do.
Relationships: Josh Lyman & Toby Ziegler, Josh Lyman/Donna Moss
Comments: 17
Kudos: 100





	the elephant in the whitehouse

“What do you think ‘it was bound to happen sometime’ means?” 

“Hello to you, too,” Toby grumbled. Josh ignored the response, and walked further away from the crowd of people. He knew he should be focusing on the Congressman’s speech, or at least thinking about where they needed to head next after the polling developments from last night-but after his conversation with C.J., after Donna’s smile, he needed a second. 

“What do you think it means?” he repeated, finding a quiet corner of the makeshift arena. The rest of the campaign team was on the other side of the chairs, making him safe from one of them overhearing him. 

“In what context?” Toby asked. He sounded like he was settling in, like he knew this conversation would involve pulling metaphorical teeth.

“Not the campaign,” Josh said quickly. “Just...in life.” 

“Someone told you ‘it was bound to happen sometime’, and you want me, a person who was not involved and has zero context to the situation, to explain to you what they meant?” Toby’s voice was flat, in a way that meant he was completely uninterested. Josh knew even Toby, whose life was now limited to planning for his disposition, giving Josh unsanctioned advice about running his own campaign, and avoiding the press so he could see a hint of his own children, would not have patience for the whole story. And frankly, he really didn’t want to tell it. He knew that his relationship with Donna looked complicated from the outside, but he found it even harder to understand while being one of the two people experiencing it. 

“I don’t want to give you context.” Josh told him, eyes looking around, like Donna was going to jump from around a corner and flash that smile again, and suck all thoughts out of his head, like some sort of love vacuum. 

“You don’t want- No, no. Even I could find something else to do, rather than listen to you talk absolute nonsense,” Toby replied. Josh imagined the stupid little smile on his face, when he thought he was right. Even though, Josh considered, this time he was right. 

“Fine- fine.” Josh let out a deep sigh. Maybe he could get through this with as little detail as possible. He was only still on the phone because he knew if he didn’t get answers from somebody, he was going to go crazy. Which was really the last thing he needed while running a national campaign. “If I did something, theoretically, with Donna, for the first time, and tried to apologize after, and her response was ‘It was bound to happen sometime’-what would that even mean?” 

“Did ‘something’ with Donna?” Toby repeated. “Did what- meth? Cocaine?” 

Josh hissed through his teeth. Fine. Fine. He’d say it. He looked around once more, looking for any familiar faces- Ronna, Bram, Annabeth- but all he saw was a collection of empty chairs and a few secret service agents. 

“I kissed her.” 

There was silence for a moment. 

“You haven’t even kissed her before?” Toby asked, voice getting sort of high pitched and stringy. 

“What do you mean?” Josh asked, voice matching his tone. “When would I have-”

“Not even one drunken kiss- I dunno, during one of the campaigns, during an inauguration, when we were lost in Indiana and I wasn’t looking, maybe when she was taking care of you-” 

“What!” Josh exclaimed. He didn’t care about being quiet anymore. “Why would we have kissed, Toby, it would have been inappr- completely inappropriate! I didn’t have a death wish, Leo or C.J. would have-” 

“Oh please, Josh.” He could almost see Toby rolling his eyes. “You mean to say that you two have been hanging off of each other, speaking in your own little language, doing that thing when you talk practically in each other’s mouths- and you’ve never even kissed?” 

“Yes, I just said that,” Josh said, voice perturbed. He wasn’t sure if he should feel insulted or not. “But last night-” 

“After you found out about the polls? At least someone could say you’re predictable,” Toby muttered, almost not even talking to him anymore. “Resolving nearly a decade’s worth of sexual tension with a single kiss after a major electoral moment in national campaign-” 

“Toby!” Josh whined. “It has not been a decade-” 

Toby laughed. He, honest to god, laughed. 

“Joshua, if you haven’t thought it’s been a decade, I don’t know what to tell you. I remember her trailing after you during the first election, back when we all thought we walked on clouds, you beaming at her like the sun itself had graced you with its presence-” 

Josh cut him off before his face could get any redder. “Toby, I really don’t need to hear a repeat of the last ten years of my life.” 

“It seems like you do!” Toby retorted, voice getting high pitched again. “Or when we first got into the White House, and you two would walk and banter as if no one else was there at all. Or when you played good cop and forced me out in the cold to throw snowballs at her window and drape your coat across her shoulders! Or,” and his voice got softer at this, “When I had to tell her you’d gotten shot.” 

Josh swallowed. His entire mood got darker. He’d never really thought about how Donna’d reacted when he got shot- all he remembered was her peering down at him with Sam and Toby, making excuses for where C.J. was. They’d never talked about it, he realized. They’d never even gotten close to discussing it. 

“You told her?” Josh asked, softly. 

Toby took a deep breath. “Yeah. Yeah, I told her. She showed up just after the president got out of surgery, and she was so relieved. She couldn’t understand why we all looked so upset, so I told her about you. She didn’t seem to, ah, process it at first.” Josh felt his face twitch, imagining Donna, all those years ago. 

“I thought she was going to collapse on the floor when she finally realized you might have died.” 

They both went silent for a moment. Josh felt heavier than he’d expected, thinking back to that night. 

“Honestly, she wasn’t that different than you right after we found out about Gaza,” Toby admitted. That, Josh did remember- the fear eating him up inside, waiting to hear from anyone, the reporters, the delegation, Donna herself- only for Andy to reach Toby first. 

“You didn’t realize it then?” Toby asked, calmer than before. “When you screamed in front of the entire senior staff, after Leo sent you away, when you flew across the Atlantic just to see her-” 

“Realizing it and doing something about it are two different things,” Josh said, shortly. Half thought memories crossed his mind- his fear on the longest plane ride of his life, the desperation he felt when he read Donna’s emails about her trip, the relief he felt when he saw her breathing, still breathing- but seeing her kiss Heathcliff had stopped all his thoughts in place. Besides- if what had happened last night had been inappropriate, kissing her then, when she was hurt because of him, when she was still his assistant- it would have been worse. 

“So, what’s different now?” Toby asked, Josh forcing himself to listen. What was different now? Donna wasn’t his assistant anymore, for one. Maybe the fact that he’d already gone through the worst of all of her possible reactions to him showing her how he felt, when she’d left him for Bingo Bob. 

He’d survived that, but just barely. 

“I dunno,” he admitted. “The heat of the moment, the fact she doesn’t work for me anymore, maybe because she’s the closest person to me out here on the campaign-take your pick.”

“Being away from the White House, away from all of us, probably helps,” Toby added. 

“What do you mean?” Josh asked, confused. The White House, sure, but what did the old senior staff have to do with it?

“Well,” Toby began, voice introspective. “You’re both in a completely different dynamic over there, with her not being your assistant- but you’re around different people. People who don’t know about all of your baggage, who haven’t watched you both dance around each other since whatever happened between you two in Germany.”

“I hate to break it to you Toby, but we haven’t been dancing around anything. Nothing happened between us in Germany. We still haven’t even talked about it,” he admitted. Another one of those things they really needed to talk about. If Josh could figure out how to get a full apology out for once in his life. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was a bit relieved that Toby had only caught on after Gaza. 

Toby laughed again, and quickly soured Josh’s relief. “Josh, you two have been dancing around each other much longer than that. We’d all caught on long before Gaza. Think about all the flowers you sent her, or that reaction you had about the NSC detailee- what was his name?” 

“Lieutenant Commander Jack Reese?” Josh supplied, bitter. 

“You still remember his rank?” Toby snorted again. “Lyman, you have it bad.” 

“What did you mean ‘we’ only caught on then?” Josh asked, processing Toby’s earlier words. “And what about my original question- I don’t have a lot of time out here, you know!” 

“Yes, ‘we’,” Toby's voice got quiet. “Me, Sam, C.J., Leo- hell, even the president, I’m sure.” 

“The president?” Josh felt his voice get high pitched. “If you all knew-” 

“We wouldn’t have mentioned the preeminent elephant in the White House, are you kidding me?” Toby exclaimed. “The only thing keeping it from becoming real was us avoiding talking about it- just like you and Donna. If you talked about it-”

“It would be real,” Josh repeated. If they’d talked about Donna’s fear after he’d been shot, or about why he’d flown across the Atlantic at the drop off a hat, suddenly, all the feelings they’d been trying to hide wouldn’t be hidden anymore. All those times they’d almost gotten too close- the night Donna told him she wouldn’t stop for redlights, the talk when he’d admitted all of the stories he’d told Jack would have make him like her, when she’d come to check on him after the White House had been shot at- those had been bad enough. He froze for a moment. Toby was right. The only reason he’d never been able to talk to Donna, to sit down and really talk to her about this, about them, during all these years- it would make it real. Too real. 

Was he even ready for them to be real? In the middle of a national campaign, just as they were getting their feet under them, tying with Vinick…

But he thought of her lips on his, her hands around his neck, and knew he’d be chasing that feeling for the rest of his life.

“She meant, Josh, when she said it was bound to happen sometime- that Donna Moss has eyes, and ears, and a brain, and has existed in the same space with you for the better part of the decade- of course it was bound to happen! I still can't believe it only happened now!” Toby returned to his earlier point. 

“But what does it mean, Toby? Is it good, bad, awful?” Josh pleaded. If he didn’t get an answer on this, it would distract him from what he really should be thinking about, even right now- electoral maps and new states they’d need to travel to and more events that needed to be planned. 

“You’d have to ask Donna,” Toby told him, gentler than he expected. “You’d have to sit down, for once in your goddamn life, and communicate with her like an adult.” 

“That’s all you got for me?” Josh asked, disbelieving. “I need to talk to her?” 

“My humble opinion, as a man who has been married and divorced and rejected, all by the same woman-yes, Josh. Talk to her.” 

Josh turned, looking past the chairs and the agents, where he could see the top of Donna’s blonde head. 

He’d talk to her, he promised himself. It might not be until after the election, after Matt Santos was sitting in the Oval Office, but he owed it to her. To himself. To the elephant in the White House that had dogged their footsteps for so many years. 

“Thanks, Toby,” he replied. He hung up before Toby could fit something in about their polling numbers with accountants in Montana or something equally obscure, but kept his eyes on Donna the whole time as he walked back towards the campaign team.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I've been watching The West Wing for the first time over the last few months, and this was a little scene that's been in my head since I watched 7x13 last week. This is dedicated to Joshua and Donnatella's inability to communicate. 
> 
> Major props for TWW for getting me writing again. I hope everyone enjoys!


End file.
